This archive report was first published on 21 May 2020.
Published on May 21, 2020, Twitter announced that it is currently testing a new feature that allows users to limit who can reply to their tweets.
The feature, which is being rolled out to a small set of users, will give users three options when composing a tweet: everyone, only people you follow, and only people you mention.
According to Twitter, the feature is designed to help reduce abuse or offensive replies by unintended people and to curb conversations to only the users that the author intended to have interactions with.
“Twitter is where you go to see and talk about what’s happening,” said Twitter Director of Product Management Suzanne Xie in a blog post. “But sometimes, unwanted replies make it hard to have meaningful conversations. (Ahem, reply guys.).”
The feature does not affect who can see the tweet, as it will be available to all users, and it also does not impact likes and retweets.
Twitter is currently testing the feature with a limited group of people globally on Twitter for iOS, Android, and twitter.com, but everyone can see these conversations.
